


Overwhelmed

by AmberFyre, devilswreckedchewtoy (AmberFyre)



Series: Angel Wings [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bat Cave, Gen, Men of Letters Bunker, RP verse ficlet, Season 9 AU, Season/Series 09, angel!Sam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-15
Updated: 2014-09-15
Packaged: 2018-02-13 02:40:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2134041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmberFyre/pseuds/AmberFyre, https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmberFyre/pseuds/devilswreckedchewtoy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Surviving the Trials did more than almost kill Sam.  It wore down a barrier in his mind he hadn't even been aware of.  And what hid behind it were memories he never suspected, of a life he had never dreamed had existed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Overwhelmed

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this ficlet to introduce a verse I created for RPing on tumblr. I posted it to my Sam RP blog there, then again to a drabble blog I started. I kind of created it with a few friends, not actually a group verse, but a verse where Sam's history was entwined with a few others. So there was a lot of collaboration going on about it. Two of the characters mentioned in this ficlet are OCs of friends of mine and they helped a lot with the backstory. You can find them (and me!) on tumblr.
> 
> Aeren - http://erelxm.tumblr.com/  
> Kushiel - http://kushielsblackenedwings.tumblr.com/  
> my Sam Winchester RP blog - http://almostpurified.tumblr.com/
> 
> I am hoping to write more ficlets for this series, exploring Sam's past, as well as some based on the interactions with my friend's characters.

_originally posted to http://climbedoutoflucifersdogbowl.tumblr.com_

* * *

 

      Cas was gone, looking for clues to hunt Metatron down, and Dean was off doing his own thing.  It pained Sam a little that his brother was absent, but he was still pissed enough to be glad he wasn’t there.  The whole Gadreel episode was still far too fresh in Sam’s mind.  Besides, at the moment he had other things to think about.

     He hadn’t said anything to Cas.  Extracting the Grace Gadreel had left behind had upset the angel more than Sam expected.  Or rather, watching Sam suffer as he’d done so.  Castiel had changed a lot since Sam had first met him.

     Sam paused in his walking through the empty bunker, fingers pressing against the bridge of his nose as another random onslaught of memories washed through him.

     He was glad he’d managed to cover well enough that Cas didn’t ask questions.  Sam wanted to sort out what was going on in his head on his own before he talked to anyone about it.  Mostly because he was having a hard time  _believing_  what was going on in his head.

     He’d known something was… different… ever since he and Dean had come back here after the failed third Trial.  But it had just been a vague sense of something off.  And it was different than what he had categorized as odd things that happened because he’d had an angel on board.  Losing time, that he knew he could contribute to Gadreel’s presence.  He had access to the memories from when Gadreel took over now.  Those things he could safely shelve as having once more been an angel condom.

     But there had been other things tickling at the back of his mind that didn’t seem to have anything to do with Gadreel’s presence.  Vague and unspecific.  Until Cas had gone to extract the residual Grace Gadreel had left behind.

     He started walking again, a small snort of humorless laughter bursting from him.  He had to wonder, did Cas’s spell fail because he hadn’t been able to extract enough Grace for it… or because of  _him_?

     He shook his head as he detoured into the kitchen for a bottle of whiskey before he wandered back through the conference room towards his own bedroom.  He collapsed on the bed, opened the bottle, and took a healthy swallow.  He was far too sober to deal with this.

     Because what had happened as Cas had been extracting the Grace, was more than just his body seeming to revert back to the condition it had been in before Gadreel took up residence.  Whatever nebulous barrier that had been worn away by those Trials had finally collapsed, and what had poured in was something Sam hadn’t expected.  Ever.

     They were memories.  Memories from a time before he was Sam Winchester.  And while he didn’t give the whole past life theory a lot of thought most days, he was having to revise that on the fly.  Because if he was to believe what was now swimming around in his brain (which, unless he’d finally gone off the deep end, he kind of had to) then Anna wasn’t the only angel who’d chosen to rip out her Grace and Fall.

     At some point, so had he.

     He snorted again, taking another large swallow of whiskey, relishing the burn and using it to hold on to the here and now.  He had practice (so much practice) with compartmentalizing his memories.  Far beyond what most people had.  Spend as much time in Hell in a locked cage with two pissed off archangels and no escape and you learned how to keep things in their place.  Too many times he’d found himself in possession more memories than most from living outside a relevant timeline.  It was necessary to his sanity to be able to keep things compartmentalized.

     But these  _new_  memories- which weren’t actually new (and that was going to give him a headache if he thought about it too hard)- weren’t actually  _outside_  of a relevant timeline.  They were just before his human one even started.

     Another laugh escaped him, and if it sounded slightly hysterical, at least there was no one around to hear and witness his little breakdown.

     Dean was going to be pissed.

     A thought that finally calmed some of the hysteria.  A surge of betrayed anger that passed quickly enough under the weight of this latest revelation.

     He’d once been an angel.

     He examined that thought, turned it over slowly, trying to make it fit, trying to make it make some kind of sense.  All his life, he’d felt like he was cursed.  And when he’d learned about the demon blood and being Lucifer’s vessel, he’d thought that was the sum of it.  Knowing he’d been responsible for letting Lucifer free, seeing the looks on people’s faces when they found out about who he was and what he could do.  Seeing how angels and demons alike looked at him.  He rather thought that was enough for any one person to have to deal with.

     Now this?  Seriously?  What were the fucking odds?  Did anyone else know or have a clue?  He shook his head slowly, realizing that there wasn’t any reason for anyone to suspect that Sam Winchester, the boy with the demon blood, had once been an angel named Samuel who’d rebelled and chosen to Fall to save another.

     The angels had been watching his family, but really, how could they have figured  _that_  out?  Anna, the only human he’d known who’d once been an angel and chosen to Fall, hadn’t drawn attention until she’d started tuning in to angel radio once Dean had been freed from Hell.  Why would they have even suspected  _him_  of something similar?  Especially when both sides had been too busy herding him down their own path of destiny.

     Thinking about Anna, he realized that some of the things she’d said now made sense on a whole new level.  For one, she was right.  Ripping out your own Grace fucking  _hurt_.  In ways he couldn’t even put words to.  He blinked, realizing he was absently rubbing his hand over his chest.  He paused, his hand clenching into a fist for a moment before he let it fall to the side and took another swig of whiskey.

     Still too sober for this.

     He sighed heavily, knowing he wasn’t going to be able to run from this.  Hard to run from something in your own head.  And for better or worse, it was  _his_.  Something he didn’t share with Dean.  Something that wasn’t based on the fact that his mother died a hard death because of him.  Or on the hunter his father had trained him to be.

     He settled more on his bed, taking one more swig of whiskey before setting the bottle down on the floor.  He closed his eyes gingerly and approached the memories he’d been shoving to the side with the same caution one would approach a hungry lion.  He wanted- no he  _needed-_  to know what was there.

     He flashed for a moment on when his wall had fallen, when Cas had destroyed it.  He remembered having to fight himself to find his way back.  Remembered seeing his soulless counterpart and how it had chilled him when he’d made those memories his own.  Remembered when he had come face to face with the visual representation of his memories of Hell.  And what it had felt like to take those on as well.

     If he could do that, he could do this.  He had to.

     And as if that was all they had been waiting for, the memories that had coiled just out of reach suddenly swamped him.  For a long moment he was lost in them.  Images and thoughts and feelings from a past he hadn’t even begun to imagine had existed for him.  He let them swirl, waiting for the confusion to start to make some kind of sense, to settle into some pattern.

     Once it all settled somewhat, he blinked his eyes open slowly, staring at the ceiling as he tried to process.  As what he’d known  _before_  began to integrate itself with everything he’d learned since first meeting Castiel.

     The first immediate thought was  _Michael hasn’t changed_.  That was enough to have him reaching for the whiskey bottle again.  Yeah, this was gonna take some time to get used to.

     The one thing he took comfort in was that at least his basic personality seemed to have stayed the same.  It wasn’t so much like remembering he’d been a  _completely_ different person.  There  _was_ a lot that was different, granted.  But a lot of things that he’d only grasped around the edges from knowing Cas were beginning to make much more sense to him.  Hell, Cas made more sense to him, now.  He’d been in a similar position.

     Which was when he sat up, suddenly.  Whiskey bottle in hand but forgotten for the moment.  One thing that was consistent was that he hadn’t had a lot of friends as an angel.  But there were two names foremost in his mind.  Kushiel and Aeren.  Both had been important to him.  And knowing that the angels had been tossed out of Heaven like unwanted pets (and there was sorrow he’d never thought to feel about that) he wondered if either of the two still lived.  And if they did, if he could find them.  And if they would even know who he had been.

     Thoughts swarmed him as he absently screwed the top back on the whiskey bottle.  How exactly would one go about tracking down specific angels lost among the humans?  And would that even be a good idea?

     He frowned.  No, he needed to know.  He needed to know if either of them was still among the living, and if they were how they were doing.  Because Aeren was part of the reason he Fell.  He needed to know she was okay, that she’s managed to escape, that he’d bought her enough time.

     Sam sighed and lay back on the bed.

     Tomorrow.  He’d start looking tomorrow.

     He stared up at the ceiling, once more becoming aware of his hand rubbing absently at his chest.  And with the insight of the new memories still settling into his mind, felt a renewed respect for Cas.  Because he could  _remember_  now, what it felt like to have Grace.  Castiel deserved way more credit than he and Dean usually gave him.  It had to have been bewildering in the extreme to go from angel to human pretty much instantaneously.

     He had one last thought before he drifted off to sleep, still trying to make sense of his past.

     Could he find his own Grace, as Anna had done?  And did he want to?


End file.
